In this year’s Convergence Report, produced in accordance with Article 122 (2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community (the Treaty), the European Central Bank (ECB) uses the framework applied in the Convergence Reports produced by the European Monetary Institute (EMI) in March 1998 and the ECB in May 2000 and 2002 to examine, with regard to 11 non-euro area Member States, whether a high degree of sustainable convergence has been achieved and to gauge compliance with the statutory requirements to be fulfilled for national central banks (NCBs) to become an integral part of the Eurosystem.
The Member States examined by this report are: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden.
Following the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 in 11 Member States and on 1 January 2001 in Greece, and the enlargement of the European Union (EU) with ten new Member States on 1 May 2004, 13 Member States are not yet full participants in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Two of these Member States, namely Denmark and the United Kingdom, have a special status. In accordance with the terms of the relevant protocols, annexed to the Treaty, these countries gave notification that they would not participate in Stage Three of EMU on 1 January 1999. As a consequence, convergence reports for these two Member States only have to be provided if they so request. Since no such request has been made, this year’s Convergence Report excludes these two countries. [...]
